


A day's work

by Zhelana



Series: Dollars Series [5]
Category: seaQuest
Genre: Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9245453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhelana/pseuds/Zhelana
Summary: How Lucas came to join the seaQuest crew





	

What, exactly, does one do with a BA in computer science if one is only 15 years old? It is illegal for anyone to hire you full time for another year. Grad school isn’t very tempting. After all, you didn’t learn anything you hadn’t known almost your whole life as an undergrad, and the hope of learning something new and exciting as a grad student isn’t too promising either. The idea of spending more time in classrooms listening to someone discuss theories of computers that you could do in your sleep is not your idea of a good way to spend your life. 

Suddenly, you regret it all. You regret getting bored with school at 13 and taking your GED instead of staying with all the other students your own age. You regret rushing through college in two years instead of four. You regret the fact that you have no friends. You even begin to regret the fact that you are a genius capable of doing all this. 

If you’re lucky, like I was your father has a few odd jobs you can do. He pays you, but after college you’re supposed to get a real job and be able to pay for an apartment and food and start your life. Instead, you still have your old room in your old house and you have nothing to do. Boredom sets in fast. Games on the inter-nex can only hold your attention for so long until they become simple and boring too. 

Eventually, maybe, someone notices your despondency. In my case, it was my father. I think the only way he noticed was that it was taking me longer and longer to do the tasks he asked of me, but at least he noticed. What could he do? He assigned harder tasks, but those came to me easily too. The tough stuff that would actually be interesting to me he couldn’t give me. The UEO demanded that he only have the professionals work on classified stuff. Who wants to trust a 15 year old with anything that important? 

So that’s where I was headed when I got on the inter-nex in July of 2014. Someone I had met in college was asking for help. She was trying to debug a program she had written but she couldn’t share the entire program because once again it was classified. A bunch of people had tried to help her, but had failed. The thread stretched on for several pages with people trying different things. It was amazing that all these people who graduated with me were having such trouble with the program. The mistake was so obvious to me that I had trouble not being sarcastic when I pointed it out to her. Ten minutes later I was, again, bored. 

I wandered aimlessly from room to room in the house pausing a few moments to grab a piece of cake in the kitchen, and then again to pet the dog. Mostly I just wandered. My life was about to change, but at that moment I only knew the unending boredom that came with having no school and no work and nothing to challenge me. I went back upstairs and since I had nothing else to do I hit the refresh button on my email. Three new messages in the last ten minutes. “Refinance your mortgage at historic low rates!” Trash. “Your order from amazon.com has been processed.” Good, but not very interesting. Then, came the interesting message. 

Lucas, I have been working on this problem for weeks, and you solved it within an hour! I wish you were actually here and could help me on this. I know you’re probably happily working on something much more interesting, but if you have time there is something I’d like to show you. I don’t know if you’re still living with your father, but I work very close to him. –Kim

Kim had never been the brightest student in the class, but then again that’s probably why she wound up joining the navy. Nothing really against the navy, but with a degree from Stamford most people can do better than the $25,000 a year offered to incoming officers. But, the unfortunate fact of the matter is I had nothing better to do, so I went. The problem that Kim faced was redesigning the way life support worked on submarines. Apparently, a former captain had resigned in the middle of designing this project and there wasn’t anyone left who was up to the task. The problem was daunting enough to be interesting, so I worked on it for free. During that time I met a lot of the other design crew as well as the man in charge of the project, Admiral Noyce. 

It wasn’t quite like having friends. Even the youngest of the people on the project were 18, and those enlisted seamen weren’t working on the computer end, but rather were building the ship. The youngest people I actually interacted with were in their mid 20s. But we ate lunch together and discussed computers and occasionally touched on politics. It was more social stimulation than I had since graduating. But at the same time I knew that when I finished this project everyone would get on the project and sail away and I would likely never hear from them again. 

For the time being, though, I wasn’t bored, and I wasn’t creating a nuisance of myself at home. I guess my father liked the change, because without even consulting me he started to talk to people who knew people. Finally, in October, just a few weeks before we finished the project my birthday came around. Like all 16 year olds, I was hoping for a car or at the very least a new computer system. Instead, my father presented me with an idea. He had pulled some strings and finally gotten me aboard the seaQuest.


End file.
